Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Vanilla Milk and a digression

It is no secret that Holden is a skinny boy. He's not that interested in food. He's fairly picky as well. He also is a big drinker of juice and milk. He does not like water (kinda like his Mama). It is a conundrum we deal with daily. How to get good, nutritious food into him, and limit his drinks. He's also three. Which is -- in my opinion -- the hardest pre-teen age of all. Forget the "terrible two's," it is the "@)*&(&*%$# three's!" And thus, the conundrum.

Now I obviously don't shy from the occasional trip to McD's (have I mentioned my first job ever was as a birthday clown for McDonald's? Probably I have.) I don't tend to think of Mickey D's as the evil empire it is made out to be. While yes, it is not the healthiest food out there, it gets the brunt of criticism because it is the biggest fast food joint out there. And yet when we go my boys eat apples with their nuggets, and get either milk or apple juice... anyway, I'm digressing... We're not perfect when it comes to nutrition. We like pizza. We like Red Robin. We like the occasional Mickey D's. But I also do a lot of cooking at home, and "healthifying" less than healthy meals like making homemade baked chicken nuggets, sneaking carrot puree into mac-n-cheese, and always having lots of fruits and veggies on hand. It is all about balance. At least for us it is. We like to eat!

In a kid's cup fill 1/2 way full of vanilla yogurt -- I like Fiber One because it's got added fiber in it, which I'm all about. Fill the other half up with milk. Stir. Drink. He's getting sneaked in yogurt, and less of the milk that he tends to fill up on. Win-win. You could add pureed fruit to this, but he's against the little tiny seeds that come with pureed fruit, so he eats his fruit whole on the side.

On that note, for juice I fill 3/4 full of water and add a splash of apple or orange juice on top. Since he doesn't like water, this gets him more of the water and less of the juice. One day he's going to figure out my tricks, but so far he hasn't figured it out...